The Indian Mummy Mystery

Lyman Cutlertells his grandson Joe a story about his days as a young cowboy when he came across a cliff dwelling containing abandoned pottery and an Indian mummy. When Joe and his friend Denny search for the pottery and mummy, they discover old relics including documents, photographs, and the skull of a man. This story of archaeology and preservation of natural places will thrill young explorers as they follow Joe and Denny’s adventure throughout southern Colorado.

The recurrent themes of the books in the Wilderness Mystery Series are natural phenomena—caves, canyons, mountains, sand dunes, and forests—and a sense of the past as seen through archaeology. In many of the narratives, events of long ago are seen to have left traces of their passing. Notwithstanding the fact that the books were written in the 1950s, the progressive Franklin Folsom (alias Troy Nesbit) had refreshing views of women, Native Americans, and the environment, and he was prescient in having his characters often oppose corporate and government efforts to develop wilderness areas.

Troy Nesbit was a nom de plume of the late Franklin Folsom, a graduate of the University of Colorado and Rhodes Scholar at Oxford in 1928. The author of over eighty books under various names, he was also an avocational anthropologist and wrote several scholarly books on Native Americans of the American Southwest.

Chapter 1: Ghost Town
Chapter 2: The Stolen Mummy
Chapter 3: A Real Find
Chapter 4: Difficulties
Chapter 5: “Tell the Superintendent”
Chapter 6: “It Won’t Bite”
Chapter 7: The Hidden Cave
Chapter 8: Work for a Human Fly
Chapter 9: In a Canyon
Chapter 10: The Branding Iron
Chapter 11: Jalopy for Sale
Chapter 12: Hardware—and Some Cash
Chapter 13: Loot?
Chapter 14: Mormon Gold
Chapter 15: The Huffmobile
Chapter 16: Lion Skin Game
Chapter 17: A Box of Insurance
Chapter 18: High and Dry
Chapter 19: Denny’s Half Dollar
Chapter 20: Over the Top
Chapter 21: Ordeal on the Ledge
Chapter 22: Something to be Proud Of